What happened?
Google announced the package on June 15. Before we take the three elements one by one, two concepts we'll need throughout. The target CPA tells the system how much, at most, an acquired customer or lead may cost. The target ROAS frames the same thing from the other direction: how many forints of revenue we expect for one forint of ad spend. These two settings are the advertiser's most important business instruction to Google, and every one of the current changes takes that instruction more seriously than anything before.
The first update is the extension of Smart Bidding Exploration. The essence of the feature is that the advertiser gives the system a tolerance threshold: it allows the algorithm to go somewhat below the return target, and in exchange it bids on searches the account hasn't won so far, even though they could bring in a customer. The mechanics are transparent: if the target ROAS is 200% and the tolerance is 10%, the system works with an effective target of 180% and experiments within that band.
Exploration used to run on search campaigns; from now on it's available globally for Performance Max campaigns without a product feed too, and it has opened in beta for Shopping ads. According to Google's internal measurement, campaigns using the feature see, on average, an 18% increase in the number of unique search categories that bring conversions, and a 19% increase in the number of conversions. This is Google's own global data, which also means it may be good as guidance, but by no means a guarantee in the Hungarian market.
As for Hungarian market experience, our PPC team lead, Bettina Bottyánszki, has plenty of it. Speaking about the updates, she said that the new search opportunities really can bring extra conversions, but only if the measurement properly reflects business value. If the system sees a low-profit and a high-profit purchase as equally valuable, it can easily optimize in the wrong direction.
The second update is Promotion Mode; for now it's available in a beta version. Its introduction allows a pre-scheduled, temporary loosening for high-priority periods (for example a seasonal peak, a flash sale, a product launch): extra daily budget and a raised return tolerance, which reset on their own at the end of the period. It's available on search and Performance Max campaigns.
The third update, which affects the most accounts, is the overhaul of bidding on budget-constrained campaigns. From August 17, the performance of such campaigns will consistently align with the set target. This sounds at first like a technical trifle, but it isn't, and it's worth watching the notifications arriving since July 6.
The business risk: when overperformance disappears
In many Ads accounts it's been a familiar phenomenon for years that campaigns running on a tight budget perform better than their set target. Google's example: a campaign has a target CPA of 3,000 forints set, yet the conversions come in at 1,500 forints. Until now this was a pleasant bonus that no one had to work for.
After August 17, this loophole closes. The system will deliver the set target. Staying with the example, the actual cost of 1,500 forints may rise to 3,000 forints if no one touches the settings. Part of the trade press puts it this way: in some accounts “CPAs may even double.”
It's important to know what the change doesn't cover. It only affects campaigns with a "budget-constrained" status running target-based bidding; the operation of campaigns running with a comfortable budget doesn't change, nor does that of manual bidding and impression-share optimizing strategies. The affected group, though, is broad: search, Shopping, Performance Max, Demand Gen and Travel campaigns alike. Google won't automatically modify either the target or the budget, and the non-exceedability of daily budgets stays too; the decision and the responsibility rest with the advertiser.
Providing the surface for this is the Bid Target Adjustment Tool, available since July 6, which offers three options. You accept Google's suggestion, which aligns the target with recent actual performance, so the current efficiency stays, on paper too. You enter your own value, derived from your business goals. Or you do nothing, and accept that performance will drift toward the old setting. The third option is a decision too, just the kind no one made consciously.
Two practical notes on timing. Google indicates that between August 17 and 31 the cost-forecasting tools may be less accurate, and that it's worth letting the post-transition performance stabilize over 1–2 conversion cycles before anyone draws far-reaching conclusions from it. For businesses with a long sales cycle, of the B2B type, this is especially important: the first-week numbers in September will still be misleading.
“In recent years I've come across many accounts where the target CPA or target ROAS hadn't changed in years, on the grounds that the campaigns work fine this way,” Bettina adds. “This update will bring exactly these old compromises to the surface. Where the target value no longer reflects today's business reality, the change is likely to be noticeable.”
The strategic reading: the target value became the only real control point
Read together, the three announcements make the direction clear. Google has spent years dismantling the manual intervention points, such as keyword-level bidding and detailed fine-tuning, and in parallel the automations are getting ever more room. Two meaningful levers remain in the advertiser's hands: the budget and the target value. The current package reinterprets both, and does so consistently.
Exploration and Promotion Mode encourage you to treat the target not as a rigid ceiling but as a band: alongside the base target, you take on a growth opportunity with a deliberate tolerance threshold. The August change tightens from the other direction: from now on the target isn't a signpost but an actual operating level. The system executes the instruction faster and more precisely than any PPC manager ever could, but it does nothing to improve the quality of the instruction. It executes good and bad decisions alike more precisely.
From a decision-maker's viewpoint, then, the question isn't which feature to switch on. It's this: are the CPA and ROAS targets set in our accounts derived from the current business reality (from margin, customer value, capacity), or are they the remnants of some old setting? If the latter, then they really need putting right by August 17.
Exploration and Promotion Mode: opportunity for some, a trap for others
With the package's two optional elements, the task is simply to look behind the tempting numbers.
The prospect of a 19% conversion increase is attractive, but the number of conversions isn't the same as profit. By switching Exploration on, the company deliberately gives up some short-term efficiency in the hope of new demand. This is a sensible decision for a business running on high margins and returning customers, but at a low-margin webshop, for example, it can easily increase traffic while business results worsen. The system only follows the business reality you show it through the data. If every purchase gets the same value in the measurement, while some products or customer types are significantly more profitable, the algorithm will scale up the distorted picture at high speed.
Promotion Mode will be genuinely interesting for companies preparing for Q4. Manually bumping up budgets during peak periods used to produce two typical mistakes: under the pressure of daily results the team made hasty adjustments, and after the promotion a raised setting or two would stay in place, so the campaign ran for weeks on conditions that were only justified in high season. The scheduled, automatically resetting setting filters out exactly this organizational risk. One lesson can already be drawn from it: it's worth separating the seasonal budget from the normal operating budget, because the two work with different return expectations and risk profiles. Anyone who expects the same ROAS all year round is too cautious on the best days and too generous in the weaker weeks.
What's worth reviewing while it's still July?
What follows isn't a setup guide; these are questions a marketing leader should get answers to from their team or agency in the coming weeks:
- How many of our campaigns run budget-constrained with target-based bidding, and how big is the gap between the set target and actual performance?
- Who reviewed the Google Ads notifications arriving since July 6, and have we decided on one of the three options?
- Are the current target values derived from the current margin and customer value, or are they inherited numbers?
- If conversions get more expensive after August, do we have a rule set in advance: adjust the target, reallocate budget, or accept it?
- For the Q4 peak period, do we have a pre-scheduled budget and target-value plan, with or without Promotion Mode?
If there's no answer to these right now, it isn't the team's fault: the change is fresh, and the notifications easily get lost in the daily noise of the accounts. But after August 17, "we didn't decide" becomes a decision too.
The next step
The review isn't a multi-week project: in a medium-sized account it becomes clear within a few hours which campaigns are affected and how big the exposure is. The Markestic team will screen the target settings of your budget-constrained campaigns before August 17, and give a concrete recommendation: where the target needs adjusting, where the budget does, and where nothing needs touching. Ask us for an audit, and your accounts will be in order in time, with the decision in your hands.